Ralph Hotere
Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1931, d.2013
Te Aupōuri,
Muriwhenua,
Māori
Aramoana - Drawing for a Black Window
- 1981
- Mixed media and photocopy on paper
- Purchased 1981
- Reproduced by permission of the Hotere Foundation Trust
- 560 x 760mm
- 82/08
Tags: crosses (motifs), frames (furnishings), islands (landforms), landscapes (representations), natural landscapes, political art, pollution, seas, shores (landforms), windows, words
In his drawing for a ‘black window’, Ralph Hotere plays with language to pointed effect. Across a night view of the fragile coastal landscape at the mouth of Otago Harbour, Hotere writes the word ‘Aramoana’ backwards – as if to be read by someone outside. In the inset photograph in the foreground, a sign declaring the future presence of an aluminium smelter in this landscape has been vandalised with a splash of Hotere’s trademark black paint. Beneath it a toxic spill of silver ink provides a warning vision of environmental damage. (Brought to light, November 2009)